Tax deal confuses voters, Cuomo still popular

A poll released this morning by Quinnipiac University finds voters generally confused with the income tax restructuring that passed in a blitzrkrieg session two weeks ago. That agreement renewed more than half off a 2009 income tax surcharge that Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Senate Republicans, had argued until this month should expire.

The new rates are a tax hike, 40 percent of voters say, while 28 percent say they are a tax cut, with 32 percent undecided. Their own taxes will go up, 35 percent of voters say, while 23 percent say they go down, with 43 percent who don’t know. Voters with a college degree split 30 – 31 percent while voters with no degree say 38 – 18 percent their taxes go up.

“The speed in changing the state tax code has left a lot of New Yorkers confused. Most of the state is divided on the merits, with New York City voters more negative than not,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

By a 47-35 margin (18 percent undecided), voters say Cuomo broke his no-new-tax pledge, and by a 42-23 margin the poll found voters see Cuomo as having betrayed his pledge to end the opaque “three-men-in-a-room” style of governing.

“That transparent government that Gov. Cuomo promised? Opaque is more like it,” said Carroll. “A lot of voters think that, in the quickie tax deal, Cuomo broke his promise to end Albany’s tradition of ‘three men in a room.’”